In a cellular orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) wireless packet communication system, uplink/downlink data packet transmission is made on a subframe basis and one subframe is defined by a certain time interval including a plurality of OFDM symbols.
The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) supports a type 1 radio frame structure applicable to frequency division duplex (FDD), and a type 2 radio frame structure applicable to time division duplex (TDD). The structure of a type 1 radio frame is shown in FIG. 1. The type 1 radio frame includes ten subframes, each of which consists of two slots. The structure of a type 2 radio frame is shown in FIG. 2. The type 2 radio frame includes two half-frames, each of which is made up of five subframes, a downlink piloting time slot (DwPTS), a gap period (GP), and an uplink piloting time slot (UpPTS), in which one subframe consists of two slots. That is, one subframe is composed of two slots irrespective of the radio frame type.
A signal transmitted in each slot can be described by a resource grid including NRBDL NSCRB subcarriers and NsymbDL OFDM symbols. Here, NDLSB represents the number of resource blocks (RBs) in a downlink, NRBSC represents the number of subcarriers constituting one RB, and NsymbDL represents the number of OFDM symbols in one downlink slot. The structure of this resource grid is shown in FIG. 3.
RBs are used to describe a mapping relationship between certain physical channels and resource elements. The RBs can be classified into physical resource blocks (PRBs) and virtual resource blocks (VRBs), which means that a RB may be either one of a PRB or a VRB. A mapping relationship between the VRBs and the PRBs can be described on a subframe basis. In more detail, it can be described in units of each of slots constituting one subframe. Also, the mapping relationship between the VRBs and the PRBs can be described using a mapping relationship between indexes of the VRBs and indexes of PRBs. A detailed description of this will be further given in embodiments of the present invention.
A PRB is defined by NsymbDL consecutive OFDM symbols in a time domain and NSCRB consecutive subcarriers in a frequency domain. One PRB is therefore composed of NsymbDL NSCRB resource elements. The PRBs are assigned numbers from 0 to NRBDL−1 in the frequency domain.
A VRB can have the same size as that of the PRB. There are two types of VRBs defined, the first one being a localized type and the second one being a distributed type. For each VRB type, a pair of VRBs have a single VRB index in common (may hereinafter be referred to as a ‘VRB number’) and are allocated over two slots of one subframe. In other words, NRBDL VRBs belonging to a first one of two slots constituting one subframe are each assigned any one index of 0 to NRBDL−1, and NRBDL VRBs belonging to a second one of the two slots are likewise each assigned any one index of 0 to NRBDL−1.
The index of a VRB corresponding to a specific virtual frequency band of the first slot has the same value as that of the index of a VRB corresponding to the specific virtual frequency band of the second slot. That is, assuming that a VRB corresponding to an ith virtual frequency band of the first slot is denoted by VRB1(i), a VRB corresponding to a jth virtual frequency band of the second slot is denoted by VRB2(j) and index numbers of the VRB1(i) and VRB2(j) are denoted by index(VRB1(i)) and index(VRB2(j)), respectively, a relationship of index(VRB1(k))=index(VRB2(k)) is established (see FIG. 4A).
Likewise, the index of a PRB corresponding to a specific frequency band of the first slot has the same value as that of the index of a PRB corresponding to the specific frequency band of the second slot. That is, assuming that a PRB corresponding to an ith frequency band of the first slot is denoted by PRB1(i), a PRB corresponding to a jth frequency band of the second slot is denoted by PRB2(j) and index numbers of the PRB1(i) and PRB2(j) are denoted by index(PRB1(i)) and index(PRB2(j)), respectively, a relationship of index(PRB1(k))=index(PRB2(k)) is established (see FIG. 4B).
Some of the plurality of aforementioned VRBs are allocated as the localized type and the others are allocated as the distributed type. Hereinafter, the VRBs allocated as the localized type will be referred to as ‘localized virtual resource blocks (LVRBs)’ and the VRBs allocated as the distributed type will be referred to as ‘distributed virtual resource blocks (DVRBs)’.
The localized VRBs (LVRBs) are directly mapped to PRBs and the indexes of the LVRBs correspond to the indexes of the PRBs. Also, LVRBs of index i correspond to PRBs of index i. That is, an LVRB1 having the index i corresponds to a PRB1 having the index i, and an LVRB2 having the index i corresponds to a PRB2 having the index i (see FIG. 5). In this case, it is assumed that the VRBs of FIG. 5 are all allocated as LVRBs.
The distributed VRBs (DVRBs) may not be directly mapped to PRBs. That is, the indexes of the DVRBs can be mapped to the PRBs after being subjected to a series of processes.
First, the order of a sequence of consecutive indexes of the DVRBs can be interleaved by a block interleaver. Here, the sequence of consecutive indexes means that the index number is sequentially incremented by one beginning with 0. A sequence of indexes outputted from the interleaver is sequentially mapped to a sequence of consecutive indexes of PRB1s (see FIG. 6). It is assumed that the VRBs of FIG. 6 are all allocated as DVRBs. On the other hand, the sequence of indexes outputted from the interleaver is cyclically shifted by a predetermined number and the cyclically shifted index sequence is sequentially mapped to a sequence of consecutive indexes of PRB2s (see FIG. 7). It is assumed that the VRBs of FIG. 7 are all allocated as DVRBs. In this manner, PRB indexes and DVRB indexes can be mapped over two slots.
On the other hand, in the above processes, a sequence of consecutive indexes of the DVRBs may be sequentially mapped to the sequence of consecutive indexes of the PRB1s without passing through the interleaver. Also, the sequence of consecutive indexes of the DVRBs may be cyclically shifted by the predetermined number without passing through the interleaver and the cyclically shifted index sequence may be sequentially mapped to the sequence of consecutive indexes of the PRB2s.
According to the above-mentioned processes of mapping DVRBs to PRBs, a PRB1(i) and a PRB2(i) having the same index i can be mapped to a DVRB1(m) and a DVRB2(n) having different indexes m and n. For example, referring to FIGS. 6 and 7, a PRB1(1) and a PRB2(1) are mapped to a DVRB1(6) and a DVRB2(9) having different indexes. A frequency diversity effect can be obtained based on the DVRB mapping scheme.
In the case where VRB(1)s, among the VRBs, are allocated as DVRBs as in FIG. 8, if the methods of FIGS. 6 and 7 are used, LVRBs cannot be assigned to a PRB2(6) and a PRB1(9) although VRBs have not been assigned yet to the PRB2(6) and PRB1(9). The reason is as follows: according to the aforementioned LVRB mapping scheme, that LVRBs are mapped to the PRB2(6) and PRB1(9) means that LVRBs are also mapped to a PRB1(6) and a PRB2(9); however, the PRB1(6) and PRB2(9) have already been mapped by the aforementioned VRB1(1) and VRB2(1). In this regard, it will be understood that the LVRB mapping may be restricted by the DVRB mapping results. Therefore, there is a need to determine DVRB mapping rules in consideration of the LVRB mapping.
In a broadband wireless mobile communication system using a multi-carrier, radio resources can be allocated to each terminal with a LVRB and/or DVRB scheme. The information indicating which scheme is used can be transmitted with a bitmap format. At this time, the allocation of radio resources to each terminal can be carried out in units of one RB. In this case, resources can be allocated with a granularity of ‘1’ RB, but a large amount of bit overhead is required to transmit the allocation information with the bitmap format. Alternatively, an RB group (RBG) consisting of PRBs of k consecutive indexes (e.g., k=3) may be defined and resources may be allocated with a granularity of 1′ RBG. In this case, the RB allocation is not sophisticatedly performed, but there is an advantage that bit overhead is reduced.
In this case, LVRBs can be mapped to PRBs on an RBG basis. For example, PRBs having three consecutive indexes, a PRB1(i), PRB1(i+1), PRB1(i+2), PRB2(i), PRB2(i+1) and PRB2(i+2), may constitute one RBG, and LVRBs may be mapped to this RBG in units of an RBG. However, in the case where one or more of the PRB1(i), PRB1(i+1), PRB1(i+2), PRB2(i), PRB2(i+1) and PRB2(i+2) were previously mapped by DVRBs, this RBG cannot be mapped by LVRBs on an RBG basis. That is, the DVRB mapping rules may restrict the RBG-unit LVRB mapping.
As mentioned above, because the DVRB mapping rules may affect the LVRB mapping, there is a need to determine the DVRB mapping rules in consideration of the LVRB mapping.